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MtGox.com is offline

mtgox.com

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Re: MtGox.com is offline

#501

Post by celticninja »

eli wrote: post #411
mrcwinn wrote: post #385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can tell you absolutely, without question, that when it comes to security and people's funds, there is nothing courageous about a hacked MVP in production. There's a difference between someone's to-do app one weekend, and this case. If you are handling people's money directly or indirectly, you need to care about that and take it seriously. Or don't ship.

Well I would argue that the "M" in MVP would necessitate never losing anyone's money. If I were going to create a trading platform, I'd probably start with one that only accepted Play Money.

Well when mtgox started off btc was play money, it was always play money until perhaps 12 months ago when it became serious money. And I base play and serious on the value, at $10 a coin it was still fun, at $100 a coin I had to seriously consider how much I should keep on my phone or any other single place.

Re: MtGox.com is offline

#502

Post by mpyne »

BlackDeath3 wrote: post #455
haberman wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, if I have any schadenfreude here it's not for him. It's for all of the people who smugly told us for years that Bitcoin is superior to our "legacy" fiat managed and regulated monetary system system in every way, and anyone who can't see that is an idiot.

It's a good thing that nobody has ever been massively fucked over by a regulated fiat system.

Funny thing about this argument is that we don't apply it to the rest of the world, and for good reason.

"God look at all the people killed by that airplane attack... let's get rid of skyscrapers and/or airplanes!"

"Man, alcohol sure does fuck over a lot of families, let's prohibit it!"

"That computer-based system led to millions of dollars being lost, we should stop using computers!"

Face it, now the same argument that you would use in support of still using Bitcoin exchanges (presumably run by more competent individuals?) would also work in support of regulated fiat systems (especially those run by more competent individuals!).

Re: MtGox.com is offline

#503

Post by BlackDeath3 »

mpyne wrote: post #497
BlackDeath3 wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand a certain irritation with a lot of "Bitcoiners", but don't let contempt of Bitcoin extremists make you an anti-Bitcoin extremist.

Where did you get "anti-Bitcoin extremist " from any of what they wrote?

I didn't necessarily, it's just a precaution. I see a lot of vitriol directed at Bitcoin, and this sort of extremist overcompensation is really nothing new anyway. It's just a reminder to stay rational.

Re: MtGox.com is offline

#504

Post by BlackDeath3 »

mpyne wrote: post #502
BlackDeath3 wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good thing that nobody has ever been massively fucked over by a regulated fiat system.

Funny thing about this argument is that we don't apply it to the rest of the world, and for good reason. "God look at all the people killed by that airplane attack... let's get rid of skyscrapers and/or airplanes!" "Man, alcohol sure does fuck over a lot of families, let's prohibit it!" "That computer-based system led to millions of dollars being lost, we should stop using computers!" Face it, now the same argument t…

Getting rid of something is not necessarily the same thing as proposing an alternative that may provide new benefits.

Re: MtGox.com is offline

#505

Post by celticninja »

jackgavigan wrote: post #345
blhack wrote: post #68

It's really easy in all of this to pile a bunch of hatred on Mark Karpeles, but please, everybody remember that he is a human being, with real human emotions, and that those things really do hurt. -- MtGox was (past tense is probably appropriate here, but for the sake of anybody who had coins there, I hope not) a startup that failed spectacularly , and publicly, and took a TON of peoples' money with it. The transacti…

I have zero sympathy for Karpeles or anyone else who screws up like this. The reason this sort of thing happens is either because (a) the perpetrators deliberately set out to defraud their customers or (b) they got overconfident and sold a product/service that they simply weren't capable of delivering. Operating a financial exchange is a serious business. In purporting to do so, you're taking people's money and promi…

This is just life and death of a business and it is interesting to watch how these exchanges are being removed from the economy, by essentially a Darwinian survival of the fittest rule, the least secure get hacked and taken off line. We lost bitcoin-central, bitcoinica, mtgox on the way but BTC-E is going strong and so is Bitstamp, kraken are doing a good job and so are btcchina. The market does not need regulation. Gmaxwell has suggested exchanges provide an anonymised form of financial data to confirm their liquidity and I know BTC-E have suggested they will do something like that. Of course people may suffer losses along the way and that sucks but you can buy and store them locally and this sort of thing will never affect you.

Re: MtGox.com is offline

#506

Post by mpyne »

BlackDeath3 wrote: post #504
mpyne wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny thing about this argument is that we don't apply it to the rest of the world, and for good reason. "God look at all the people killed by that airplane attack... let's get rid of skyscrapers and/or airplanes!" "Man, alcohol sure does fuck over a lot of families, let's prohibit it!" "That computer-based system led to millions of dollars being lost, we should stop using computers!" Face it, now the same argument t…

Getting rid of something is not necessarily the same thing as proposing an alternative that may provide new benefits.

Unregulated currency is only new to those who refused to stay awake in their history and humanities classes though.

Unregulated currency by cryptography is novel, but doesn't create an inherently new concept any more than digital cryptography did not innovate encipherment or authenticity checking.

Re: MtGox.com is offline

#507

Post by hga »

danielweber wrote: post #420
saalweachter wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taken by other people. That's the more interesting note, IMO. My understanding of the problem is that some people went to withdraw money and due to transaction malleability MtGox thought the transaction failed and resent repeatedly. But the first transaction didn't actually fail and they received their money multiple times. Whether this happened to a lot of people a little or a few people a lot, and whether they were…

This is basic failure of accounting. If you are running a bank, you need to get things to match up exactly . In a lot of software engineering, Good Enough really is good enough. But a 5 cent discrepancy between what you actually have and what you thought you had need to be treated as seriously as a $5 million discrepancy.

Bingo. While growing up in the '70s, my parents were often small businessmen, or running the business affairs of e.g. groups of doctors. More than one I can remember them spending quite a while tracking down a less than $1 discrepancy in the books they necessarily kept manually, for just that reason. (They moved to doing by computer in the '80s, of course.)

Re: MtGox.com is offline

#508

Post by puredemo »

danielweber wrote: post #413
dobbsbob wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people who've been around bitcointalk and bitcoin-otc know not to use MtGox since circa 2011 when their stunning incompetence was at it's height. Sadly there were plenty of media shill articles when Btc skyrocketed to $1,000 last year who were promoting them as the "Biggest Bitcoin exchange" without pointing people to relevant bitcointalk threads on what a nightmare that site has been over the years. If you read…

people who've been around bitcointalk and bitcoin-otc know not to use MtGox There are a lot of forums on the Internet. It's not confidence-building, at all , to tell people "if you hang out on the right forum you know what's safe." Especially because "the right forum" is not written in stone.

That's what makes it fun..

Re: MtGox.com is offline

#509

Post by taspeotis »

dobbsbob wrote: post #223
panarky wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no fucking way 700,000 BTC disappears with nobody noticing. This must have been building for a long time. Was there never any attempt to compare BTC in wallets to customer balances? Or did MtGox know about this problem, and hope to cover it up over time? Either case is at least gross negligence if not criminal fraud. Yes, we all fuck up at some point. But I don't pretend to be a surgeon and perforate a patie…

Most people who've been around bitcointalk and bitcoin-otc know not to use MtGox since circa 2011 when their stunning incompetence was at it's height. Sadly there were plenty of media shill articles when Btc skyrocketed to $1,000 last year who were promoting them as the "Biggest Bitcoin exchange" without pointing people to relevant bitcointalk threads on what a nightmare that site has been over the years. If you read…

Oh lawdy [1]:

    Of course normal frameworks are a no-go. Using
    someone else’s framework will make your world
    slightly better, but until you create your own
    full framework, you won’t understand what I mean.

    The next step is to build applications with your
    framework. The kind of applications that will
    change the world...
Should have tagged the post with NIH.

[1] http://blog.magicaltux.net/2009/09/19/striving-for-a-better-...

Re: MtGox.com is offline

#510

Post by gwern »

A_COMPUTER wrote: post #202
erichurkman wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dearly hope no one invested their life savings into Bitcoin. That said, I'm sure many did, as they tend to do into any investment that has potentially huge upswings.

https://falkvinge.net/2011/05/29/why-im-putting-all-my-savin... You mean like Rick Falkvinge founder of the Pirate Party?

Falkvinge says he got most of his bitcoins off Mtgox before it blew: http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/1yv26o/gox_horror_s...
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